After treating the BC Greens as an afterthought for most of the election, NDP Leader David Eby took the gloves off Sunday, urging Green voters to abandon that party and rally behind his own to stop BC Conservative Leader John Rustad from winning on Oct. 19.
“I think that the values of the people who are thinking about voting Green this election are completely at odds with the vision that John Rustad is promoting,” Eby said at an event in Squamish.
“The only way that we can be certain that we don't wake up on Monday morning to premier John Rustad is if we work together.”
The move coincides with an online push by NDP surrogates to portray the Greens as flirting with supporting Rustad, undermining the NDP’s CleanBC climate change strategy and failing to look at the bigger political picture (which, ultimately, conveniently, only benefits the NDP).
Still, it will be a tough sell by New Democrats, for a variety of reasons.
Many voters saw Green Leader Sonia Furstenau deliver a solid performance in the televised leaders’ debate, with a reasonable message to a fractured electorate that neither the NDP nor the Conservatives should be given all the power on election day.
Greens also remember all-too-vividly the NDP tearing up the confidence and supply agreement in 2020, plunging the province into an early election and heavily targeting the Greens to try and wipe their former allies off the electoral map.
Eby’s latest call to end the Greens came just five days after a leaders’ debate in which he vocally agreed with Furstenau on several occasions.
“This is a generational moment,” Eby said Sunday, before describing Rustad as having “a hateful vision” for the future of the province.
“I think every vote is going to matter in this election,” he added.
“It's incredibly tight, and I'm asking people to think very carefully about how they would feel if they woke up on Sunday morning to premier John Rustad as he begins to implement his plan to cut and divide our province.”
It is indeed a tight election, according to the polls. But that’s more of a reflection of the failures of the NDP than anyone else.
The Eby administration should look in the mirror, not at the Greens, for being so out-of-touch with public opinion over the last 22 months that it has caused a frustrated public to flirt with electing an untested and controversial BC Conservative party.
The Greens were expecting the NDP turn.
But they didn’t expect Eby to do it Sunday in the riding of West Vancouver-Sea to Sky, where internal polling has Green candidate Jeremy Valeriote in the lead, Conservative Yuri Fulmer in second and the NDP’s Jen Ford a distant third. Valeriote finished within 60 votes of victory in 2020.
Were Greens to actually heed Eby’s call in that riding, they could simply be handing the seat to the Conservatives.
“Throughout his campaign, Eby has focused on telling people not to vote for the BC Conservatives, and now he’s telling people not to vote for the BC Greens,” Furstenau said in a statement.
“What he’s failed to demonstrate is why British Columbians should vote for the BC NDP, effectively squandering the multi-point lead he had for most of this year.
“Meanwhile, the BC Greens have campaigned on a clear vision of well-being and putting people first. We’ve presented a coherent, informed, thoughtful and fully costed platform.”
Green polling also has Furstenau ahead in Victoria-Beacon Hill, where she is challenging incumbent NDP cabinet minister Grace Lore and Conservative Tim Thielmann.
Expect the NDP to ramp up the rhetoric in the days ahead, to try and turn that riding around.
One early test run on how nasty it could get came from outgoing NDP minister Rob Fleming, who took to social media to post a video of Furstenau in which she calls for voters to consider re-electing independent incumbent MLAs. Most of the independents are displaced BC United MLAs.
“It's both politically bizarre & risky to heed Sonia's advice to elect right-wing MLAs that will help climate science denier John Rustad become premier,” posted Fleming.
“Sonia used to decry ‘strategic voting’ but now gets into the mud & calls for an anti-NDP vote…selling out her Green candidates!”
You can also expect more from NDP validators, like Whistler business owner Sue Adams, who joined Eby at his announcement Sunday and unloaded on the Greens.
“The Green Party will not be in a position of power, but rather a quiet, albeit very well meaning, voice in the wilderness,” she said. “Voting Green is actually, if we look at it, kind of a vote for Rustad.”
Eby refused to repeat that line, when pressed on if he shares the position. But he also didn’t denounce it either.
The BC Greens will have to brace themselves. It’s going to be a nasty final few days before the election.
Rob Shaw has spent more than 16 years covering B.C. politics, now reporting for CHEK News and writing for Glacier Media. He is the co-author of the national bestselling book A Matter of Confidence, host of the weekly podcast Political Capital, and a regular guest on CBC Radio.
